Basement Files 44
"As the idea develops, does it live up to or surpass the promise of the spark that got you excited?" - Rick Rubin
Visual Inspiration
Human Inspiration
Nir Eyal
This is a great intro to a lot of Nir's ideas and methods around distraction and it is not the usual tech doom mongering we often hear.
Product Inspiration
Invision
If you happen to be young enough to not really know what Invision was, it was the big prototyping design tool for a time in the early Tenties. A few different moves and we could have been talking about it being acquired by Adobe for $20B last year.
Instead, here is an excerpt of an email from CEO Michael Shenkman this week -
Today I am writing to share that after careful consideration we have made the difficult decision to discontinue InVision's design collaboration services (including prototypes, DSM, etc) at the end of 2024.
As you may know, our Freehand visual collaboration product was acquired by Miro earlier this fall. Miro has exciting plans for Freehand and will be communicating with Freehand customers directly moving forward.
Two pretty incredible things here:
- The only valuable thing to survive was Freehand.
- Invision is totally and completely dead.
Invision Quick History
- 2011 - Invision launched as a tool for prototyping.
- 2013 - Took on investment. Started building Invision out as well as plugins for Sketch.
- 2018 - Created Invision Studio. My impression of this launch was that it was perennially "nearly here" and "nearly good enough".
- 2020 - Created Freehand - the only salable piece in 2024.
- 2020 - Created Design System Manager. Again my impression of this was that it was almost good enough to bother my organisation to upgrade for.
Why did they fail?
I have no idea but here are some thoughts.
My initial impression is that Figma since 2019/20 was just too good of a product. Invision filled a hole in the design tooling for a time but failed to build a compelling product while they had the attention and the money to do so.
They made an early bet on Sketch with their 'Craft' suite of plugins. It's clear in retrospect that they bet on the wrong horse. I'm not sure anyone would predict what Figma became in 2021 from what it was in 2014.
Invision Studio in 2018 came too late. By that time Figma is starting to become the juggernaut it is today. It should have been clear in 2013 that owning the design tool was the right strategy.
Ultimately I am nostalgic for what was an exciting period in product design tooling with XD, Figma, Sketch, Invision, Marvel all viable products through 2012-2020.
In 2024 there is only one.
